I’m not exactly sure why this movie it called A Storybook Christmas. The book aspect of it has very little to do with the actual plot. Let me show you what I’m talking about.
Celeste (Ali Liebert), a party planner, has a job with a difficult client, who keeps changing her mind about the theme for her holiday party. Finally, the client settles on Storybook Christmas. The plan is to invite some children’s book writers and have them sign autographs during the party. Except there is one writer the client demands to have, but he is a bit of a recluse. Meanwhile, Celeste is having trouble keeping up with her work duties and giving the perfect Christmas to her niece. So she hires a live-in nanny. The only one available at this time of year is a man. Celeste hires him, hoping it will all work out.
Oh, this movie. it’s not bad as much as it is more difficult than necessary. There are meaningless characters, like Celeste’s fiance, Brandon (Bradley Hamilton). He is a total drip who doesn’t care about anything except himself. And Celeste is OK with this up until the end of the movie. So many of these movies have terrible boyfriends that the women need to break up with. I would rather have every single leading lady be single at first then have them in awful relationships that they can’t let go of.
Then there is this client. I believe it is a publishing company but I’m not entirely sure about that. Anyway, the woman in charge (I’m not completely sure of her name…maybe Hanna?) literally changes her mind about her party’s theme at the last minute. Instead of telling her it’s not possible to redo the entire party theme, Celeste lets the woman walk all over her….again, until the end of the movie. I get that business owners have to make their clients happy. But they also have to set realistic expectations so they aren’t taking advantage of their niceness.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a terrible movie. Taylor (Jake Epstein), the nanny, is a perfectly nice man and he is amazing to Celeste’s niece, Finley (Habree Larratt). I fully expected the big twist halfway through the movie but that is OK. It’s a Christmas movie, not rocket science. I just wish it had a little more to push it over into ‘good movie’ territory.
Should you watch A Storybook Christmas? If you want to. There are worst ways to spend your time.